My Vote For the Meaning of Life is the Simulation Model

So I have an idea for a project. The idea is to document the core concepts
taught in the major classical works. Phase two would be to build some sort
of concept-normalized mindmap. Here’s the impetus:

When I read my favorite authors I am constantly struck by references–too
many of which I don’t have a strong command of. So my goal here is to
continue reading voraciously and to document every single reference I come
across. Then I’ll take those references, find the original work, and create
this type of summary for it.

The first task of the effort will be to come up with a format for the
summaries, which I want to be extremely clean, i.e. brief. I’m thinking
perhaps:

1. Title

2. Author name (with Wikipedia link)

3. Date of publish

4. A 1-3 sentence summary of the work

5. 1-10 bullets of key concepts and pioneering words or phrases

An example:

—

[ Many of the summary sentences will probably come out of Wikipedia, as they
have high shoulders. ]

1984

Author: George OrwellPublished: 1949

Summary

Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes written 1984), by George Orwell, published
in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an
oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of
Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance,
public mind control, and the voiding of citizens’ rights.

Concepts

• Big brother looks attractive and ends up being evil

• Watch for political talk that promotes pervasive surveillance

• Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen
  Eighty-Four that is almost purely propaganda. It is described in the
  novel as being “the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets
  smaller every year”.

• Be extremely weary of giving power to someone who says they’re
  protecting you.

—

This is, of course, an obscenely simplistic summary. But I think capturing
the major works in this way might still be of use to many–not the least of
which is me. It doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t read the works themselves, as
many are classics for the beauty in which the concepts are presented in
addition to the concepts themselves, but I believe there is value in
distilling the wisdom as well.

Thoughts? Suggestions?